Creative SoundBlaster Zx dead?

Discussion in 'Soundcards, Speakers HiFI & File formats' started by D4rKy21, Feb 10, 2013.

  1. D4rKy21

    D4rKy21 Banned

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    Hi guys i have a weird problem previous thursday i had my new Zx working fine until today i started the pc while i was on desktop i had no sound even the speaker in the right corner of my start menu was a red cross so i were trying to go to the Zx control panel it sayed it says it does not have a soundcard instaled i unistaled the drivers and then i reinstal them while i put the cd in the drive then it says no soundblaster detected, i was thinking alright windows is damaged so i formated my pc and gues what ? it still said soundblaster not detected cannot instal drivers, so i removed my soundblaster Zx and used my Xfi Fitality Titanium Pro and the sound was working again so whats going on ? i think i am going to bring it back to the store the Zx its a shame it had a wonderfull sound not sure if i want a new card tho or my money back.

    But my question is in the end is the Soundblaster Zx dead or what was it that it was not working anymore not detecting my system ? MY X-fi works fine now atm so i dont understand lastnight everything was working great until today when i started the pc up with the Zx.
     
  2. harkinsteven

    harkinsteven Guest

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    Sounds like it is damaged, only way to be sure is to test in another PC. If it does not work in another PC then it's broken. If the store does not replace it then contact creative for a RMA.
     
  3. D4rKy21

    D4rKy21 Banned

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    This is weird downstairs the pc it detecs it but here in mine it does not while my XFi works fine :S

    Few days back it was just working fine here i dont get it :S
     
  4. Mufflore

    Mufflore Ancient Guru

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    Try a different slot.
     

  5. D4rKy21

    D4rKy21 Banned

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    Doesnt matter i tryd my X/fi again and its working flawless i am going to return the Zx because this card is ending its life then it works then it suddenly works not , its my first creative product in years that causes this problem.
     
  6. Mufflore

    Mufflore Ancient Guru

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    It matters if you want to find out whether the problem is your motherboard or the sound card.
     
  7. D4rKy21

    D4rKy21 Banned

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    If the problem is my motherboard why would it works the first couple of days and then suddenly not ? and why does my X-fi works fine and this one does not ?
     
  8. Mufflore

    Mufflore Ancient Guru

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    If its the soundcard, why would it works for the first couple of days and then suddenly not ?

    As you have seen for yourself, the ZX worked fine in another motherboard, so there is good reason for further investigation.

    They are different cards with different drivers and different tolerances.
    The point/type of failure might not be relevant to both.

    If you want to argue why you should ignore good reasoning, go ahead.
    You'll need to get someone else to answer though.
     
  9. D4rKy21

    D4rKy21 Banned

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    I just think this one is faulty because there no excuse if this card works fine for 2 days and then boom it does not then there,s something with the card and not my mobo i gues.
     
  10. heymian

    heymian Guest

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    I had a similar experience with my Xonar ST. One night, my computer locked up and rebooted. When I got to Windows, my speaker icon was missing. Uninstalling/Reinstalling drivers did nothing. Moving the card did nothing. When I took the card out and put it in my old computer, it was recognized and worked fine. I did a RMA anyway, new card didn't work.

    This all didn't make sense until I checked Device Manager and saw my card still installed, even though it wasn't working. It was only after manually removing the device from Device Manager, I was able to get it working again.

    If you really reformated your PC like you say you did, this wouldn't apply to you I guess. Another thing you could try is resetting your CMOS. For me, I had to take out the CMOS battery for 2 minutes, and put it back in.

    Good luck, I know it's a huge headache.
     

  11. eclap

    eclap Banned

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    reading this just brings back memories of owning a x-fi xtrememusic. it worked for a couple of years, then it just gave up and would only work when it wanted to. one day it's fine, then not. I hope you get it sorted OP. I would rma it if I was you though, if it worked initially and now it's playing up there's a good chance something went wrong. either with your windows/drivers install or the card itself. before you do send it back, try another slot of course. I hope you get it working. Not sure what state creative drivers are currently, but I do hope they've improved.
     
  12. D4rKy21

    D4rKy21 Banned

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  13. Neo Cyrus

    Neo Cyrus Ancient Guru

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    I've been Googling around trying to find a fix and this is where I've ended up.

    After I updated my BIOS suddenly my ZxR is SOMETIMES not detected and I had to reinstall the drivers after changing the PCIE slot. Right now nothing I do works. I'm not sure if it's a coincidence or if my ZxR actually died. It's being detected as a Recon3D in the device manager, it's not working.
     
  14. -Tj-

    -Tj- Ancient Guru

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    what if you uninstall its driver in device manager (don't select delete device), press F5 let it reinstall and reboot?
     
  15. Neo Cyrus

    Neo Cyrus Ancient Guru

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    I already tried that, it would just re-detect as a Recon3D if drivers were installed. If not it would detect as a generic "HD Audio" device then when drivers were installed it would detect as a Recon3D and not work again.

    I said screw it and put it back in its original slot while I figure it out, and now magically it's detected as a ZxR again. **** Creative. I've been looking into this a lot and apparently this has been going on for a decade. And now that I think of this a similar thing happened with my X-Fi... a decade ago. Reinstalling the drivers would get it detected properly again in that case. This time around not so much. Some people are reporting that it magically starts being detected as a Recon3D or nothing at all every month. Great.

    Even worse there are a lot of reports of it not working at all on Windows 8.1, I plan on using Windows 10 when a non bloated version is released.

    As a bonus I discovered that my 2nd BIOS chip is probably dead. I tried switching to it to see if my BIOS upgrade affected anything and my system won't POST with it. The numbers on the motherboard's mini LCD won't change, they just remain at zero. Sigh. I wonder if those annoying bastards at ASRock will just ship me a BIOS chip, because I sure as hell am not going to RMA my board.
     

  16. Radical_53

    Radical_53 Ancient Guru

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    Just use the daughter board that comes with the card (sometimes connecting the ribbon cable to the card will be sufficient).
    My board had these detection issues too and they're gone (for around 2 years now?) while using the daughter board. Several MSI boards I've been using have this issue.
     
  17. Neo Cyrus

    Neo Cyrus Ancient Guru

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    I do have the daughter board connected. I actually use it for optical input from consoles.
     

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